When longtime Boise artist Alexa Rose passed away in January 2013, she left behind a comet tail of artwork, the Alexa Rose Gallery and deep roots in Boise's arts community. Add to her legacy The Alexa Rose Foundation, founded in 2014, which for the first time is initiating a grant process for local artists.

This year, the foundation will award up to 20 grants for between $250 and $5,000 to visual artists in Ada and Canyon counties for college tuition, class fees and workshops in the visual arts, travel expenses for projects related to new work, arts conference expenses, exhibitions and specific projects.

Grants in 2015 will go toward visual artists but the foundation will fund other arts projects in the future, including literary work, performance art and music.

To apply, you need the following: a completed application form, a one-page statement of purpose, a budget, images of past work and any applicable support materials. Applications will be judged based on the effect the grant would likely have on creative work, whether the grant will go toward a specific project, arts development or education within a year, and the quality of work samples provided.

Applications are due Saturday, May 30, at 4 p.m. via thumb drive to the Alexa Rose Foundation, 1020 Main St., Ste. 270, Boise, ID 83702, or by email to alexarosefoundation@gmail.com. Grants will be announced Wednesday, July 1. For more information and application materials, click on the PDF below.

In April, a jury will determine which artists will participate in the festival, and acepted artists will be notified via-email early May. Art in the Park 2015 runs Thursday, Sept. 10 through Sunday, Sept. 13.

MAD stands for Make A Difference, a global nonprofit that works to support quality education support for vulnerable youth in Tanzania, Africa and Mysore, India. Tonight at Ming Studios, MAD founder and chairwoman Theresa Grant and local art therapist Lisa Williams will speak about about MAD and its mission and how children can benefit from art.

Artwork and poetry by children from MAD's orphanage in Tanzania will be on exhibit and in a silent auction that opens at 6:30 p.m. Grant and Williams speak at 7 p.m., and the auction closes at 8 p.m.

Doors open at 6 p.m., admission is free, and light snacks and beverages will be served.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

News Year's Eve Idaho Potato Drop 2013-14, as seen from the VIP room in the Grove Hotel.

You say potato, we say Picasso.

As exclusive print media partner for the second annual New Year's Eve Idaho Potato Drop, Boise Weekly invites tater-loving artists to submit their tuber-themed drawings or paintings for consideration to grace the cover of the official four-page guide to the Idaho Potato Drop New Year's celebration.

We're looking for pieces in ink, paint or any other 2-D medium, submitted no later than Wednesday, Dec. 17. Send designs to Boise Weekly HQ, 523 Broad St.

The winning artist will receive VIP tickets for two to the Potato Drop event and their work will be featured on the cover of the event guide, which will be inserted in Boise Weekly and distributed at locations across the area.

The discussion continues, but not without you. With three meetings this month, the Department of Arts and History welcomes—and needs—your input to "help develop the first citywide cultural plan, discussing cultural needs and preferences and outlining a cohesive vision for the role of culture in our civic environment and throughout Boise."

The meetings, listed below, are open to the public and free to attend. Scroll down for addresses, and visit boiseartsandhistory.org for more info:

"Treefort is such a great event because of how organically Boise it truly is," Bieter told a crowd at El Korah Shrine—one of the festival's venues—Dec. 3. "Perhaps more than any other event, it captures the essence of Boise's creative, vibrant and unique cultural scene—especially its music."

Last year, Treefort went beyond just a music festival. It included non-music components to its lineup, including a computer and application coding element (Hackfort), a yoga lounge (Yogafort) and a literary salon (Storyfort). This coming March, it will add to its repertoire skateboard and comedy "forts."

Friday, October 31, 2014

Local designer Caleb Chung talks about turning coins into creations, while musician Dan Costello and Story Story Night co-founder Jessica Holmes look on.

There are stories, and then there are journeys. Starry Story Night was a combination of the two. This annual fundraiser for the popular Story Story Night—a local storytelling event held on the last Monday of every month—packed the Boise Contemporary Theater to capacity (in spite of the $25 ticket price) on Oct. 27 with people who had come watch five local stars each tell a story, without notes, on the theme of “Curiosity”: Furby co-creator Caleb Chung, young-adult novelist Kristiana Gregory, executive director of the Idaho Conservation League Rick Johnson, singer-songwriter Phil Roy, and dancer and Trey McIntyre Project co-founder John Michael Schert.

Guitarist Dan Costello played with Classical Revolution—a duo with a French horn and a trombone—opening the show with a whimsical theme song written for Story Story Night a few years ago.

Rick Johnson took to the microphone first, rocking back and forth as he stood on the Prussian rug set in the center of the stage. His captivating story began "like many mornings, in the shower."

Johnson talked about being in the shower of a hotel room in Washington, D.C., during a trip to lobby for conservation efforts on behalf of the Sierra Club. He was thinking vividly of the wilderness he was trying to protect and then was suddenly lying on the floor of the shower, ice-cold water spraying down on him.

Strange episodes like this continued to happen throughout Johnson’s life, including at a French restaurant, when a candle on the table and the lemon slice in his glass triggered an intense childhood flashback to his father making a martini. When he “came to,” he had fallen face-first into his plate, his wife was panicking and the waiter was calling 911. Johnson told his wife he was fine, but she said, "You are not fine. You have beans in your eyebrows."

Johnson realized he'd been having seizures, and for the rest of his 15 minutes, he talked about what it was like to be in his mind during a seizure. Even more curious, he said he kind of missed having them.

Jessica Holmes, host and co-creator of Story Story Night, then took the spotlight to explain that the idea to have local notables tell stories about curiosity came from her experience putting Story Story Night together. Holmes said she recently worked through mountains of paperwork to file Story Story Night as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Whenever she felt overwhelmed by the project, she watched video of the mission control room when the Curiosity rover was about to land on Mars.

"It was called the ‘seven minutes of terror,’" Holmes said, "because the video feed from the rover was seven minutes delayed to the control room. So for seven minutes, no one was sure if all their hard work from so many years would pay off. Then it touched down."

Holmes said now that the paperwork has been sent off, she feels like she's at the beginning of "seven months of terror," which is typically how long it takes to find out if a nonprofit proposal will be approved. She said without it, Story Story Night is at risk. If it wasn't for a Kickstarter campaign, a seed grant and a lot of donations last season, she said Story Story Night would no longer exist.

When Krtistiana Gregory stepped into the spotlight, she told a story about researching Edith Irving, a photographer who took pictures during the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Her curiosity was piqued when she saw a picture of Irving in a National Geographic she was flipping through at an orthodontist's office.

When Caleb Chung took center stage, his curly hair, energetic eyes and round torso made him look a little Furby-like. Chung’s story stemmed from his earliest memory: He found pennies on the ground that seemed to fall from the sky and they inspired a state of wonder he carries with him to this day. He then sparked the audience’s curiosity by holding out a small, golden box. The Egyptian scarab design on top of the box suddenly opened its wings, which began flapping. The box then opened by itself, a blinking white light illuminating Chung’s face. He snapped the box closed, not revealing what was inside.

"There's the curiosity," Chung said. "Do you feel it?"

After an intermission, it was Phil Roy’s turn. Roy—whose songs have appeared in Academy Award-winning films Leaving Las Vegas and As Good As It Gets—moved to Boise from Manhattan a year ago. His story meandered through his life, dropping names like Jim Carrey, Charlie Sheen and Nicolas Cage (with whom he said he shares a matching tattoo). The spotlight then turned to John Michael Schert, whose story of searching for and finding himself after a drastic life change ended the night strong.

Schert was charismatic as he peppered his story with colorful but difficult details like growing up in south Georgia, having a mother who came out as a lesbian, a brother with schizophrenia, neighbors burning crosses in their yard, and an aspiration to be a professional ballet dancer. Audience members leaned in close, taking the journey with Schert.

"We live in a state of curiosity," Schert said. "It's a state of uncertainty, of not knowing."

Story Story Night moves to the El Korah Shrine beginning Monday, Nov. 24.

Monday, September 29, 2014

Green Zoo Theatre has shown it isn't afraid to get a little freaky. Last year, at the Water Cooler, it debuted a couplet of one-act plays; one of them was a Godot-esque skit about two people stuck in a room full of broken objects trying to piece together their senses of self. Before that, it was Signal-to-Noise, a play about a dysfunctional (and unnamed) couple living their lives online and in a state of constant paranoia.

Now, Green Zoo is at it again with something no less esoteric, but certainly with more comedic implications. Enter Toast, written by Thomas Newby and Jeff Young. Here's a plot synopsis provided by the Green Zoo team:

"To fix his crumbling marriage, Larry brings home Mr. Toast: a sentient toaster on the cutting edge of food preparation technology, complete with all the bells and whistles, including existential angst, homicidal jealousy and plenty of gangster rap."

Performances take place Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 2-4, at The Muse Building (1317 W. Jefferson St.), and Sunday and Thursday, Oct. 5 and Oct. 9, at The Crux (1022 W. Main St.). Shows start at 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $7 at the door.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Atlanta, Idaho, isn't that far away from Boise—three-and-a-half hours northeast—but The Atlanta School is bringing a batch of its Weekend Hideaway works closer to home. The project features self portraits created by artists under the guidance of instructor Kris Hargis and will take over Surel's Place.

The exhibition, Some Semblance: Selected Self Portraits from The Atlanta School, will run at Surel's Other Place gallery at Cinder Wine for three months, from Saturday, Sept. 27, to Saturday, Dec. 27, with an opening reception Sept. 27, from 1 p.m.-6 p.m.

Visitors to the Weekend Hideaway exhibition at Surel's Place are invited to wear costumes, view themselves and create their own self portraits.

Listeners to Boise State Public Radiofirst heard about Hargis' Weekend Hideaway and what the art of self portraiture mean in an age of selfies and social media profile pictures. Participating artists used mirrors and various media to produce portraits of their own.